No More Restraints
by HecateA
Summary: As much as Hermione is afraid of the sea, she understands that Viktor needs it desperately—and she is willing to break all the rules to set him free and send him back to it. Creature/Selkie!AU


**Author's Note: **Huh. Enjoy!

**Hogwarts: **Assignment #10, Demonology Task #3, Write about another type of being living openly alongside humans.

**Dedication: **For starspangledpumpkin, since her beautiful mind came up with the headcanon!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Drowning imagery, coercion.

* * *

**No More Restraints**

_I always wondered why she sang so strangely_

_at the spinning wheel, why her eyes held all_

_the mourning of the darkest sea. _

-The Selkie Wife's Daughter, Jeannine Hall Gailey

When Hermione had been six years old, she had nearly drowned. She'd gone swimming since and had still enjoyed her family's vacations to the beach and the few pool parties she'd been invited to as a little girl. But she'd never forgotten how dark the water had been, when it had pressed onto her and into her lungs. The surface could have been a thousand miles away for all she'd known and she remembered, very clearly, thinking that the last thing she would see was going to be absolutely nothing.

This to say that even if Hermione herself thought it was safer to keep the sea at arm's length, she understood that it was deeper and stronger than she really knew—and if it called to Viktor with all that might, she didn't need to understand it. She stood by him.

Which in this particular case meant breaking into Karkaroff's quarters.

She had borrowed the Marauder's Map from Harry and the invisibility cloak as well. He'd seemed curious about what exactly she'd do with them, especially since he wasn't at that time involved in any late night adventures or trips.

"I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important and I'd tell you if I could," Hermione had said simply.

"Okay," Harry said. "Okay, sure, I'll leave them on my bed and you can just grab them."

"Thank you," Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "And don't tell Ron."

He'd seemed more hesitant about that last part, but Hermione trusted that he was happy enough with the newfound peace between the three of them that he would keep this to himself. As far as he could tell he had.

It was strange, sneaking around the castle in the night without the boys with her. But she had promised that she would do this, and that she'd do this alone too. Viktor had seemed terrified when he'd told her all of this. She didn't blame him; this wouldn't be a secret if it hadn't been used to burn him so badly already. That would end tonight, however. Viktor deserved to live his truth and show his true colours.

She looked at the lock on Karkaroff's office door, and then at her watch. It was 2:27. Then 2:28. 2:29 passed. And right on cue, at 2:30 a.m., she heard blasts and fireworks coming from outside. Part of her wished she was by a window, to see the lights and sounds that would be coming off the Durmstrang Ship. But she knew her role was here—within seconds, Karkaroff's door swung open and the Headmaster burst out of the room, hastily wrapped in a cloak, and looking absolutely furious.

He slammed his door and Hermione reached out and grabbed the doorknob before it could close, as other doors along the hallway opened up. Hermione hadn't realised until she'd checked the map that day how close to one another all the professors' quarters were, but all of her professors walked out, some sleepy and curious and others with their wands drawn. When the whispering and hushing and confusion had passed and everyone had retreated to their rooms, confident hat Karkaroff was handling whatever this was, Hermione slipped inside.

The room was quite barren, actually. Durmstrang's Headmaster seemed not to have brought much with him to Hogwarts, and many of the books stocking his shelf were from the school library. Hermione was thankful for the small blessing; it should make the cloak easier to find… at least she assumed she was looking for a cloak. Viktor had had difficulty explaining the exact nature of the garment, which Hermione couldn't blame him for. She doubted that any English as an additional language school or book would think of providing the right words.

She looked through the drawers but didn't see much, opened the closet and looked through the hanging clothes, on the shelf above it, in the hat and shoe boxes on the floor…

It was only when she lay on her belly to look under her bed that she saw the wooden chest, about the size of a toy crib she'd had for a doll once, that she instinctively knew she'd found it.

"_Accio," _she whispered when she realized it was just out of her reach. The chest came to her and Hermione chewed her lip when she saw the series of locks on it. While she was thinking through the list of possible defense mechanisms and charms that she and Viktor had made that morning, she suddenly realised that she hadn't heard the fireworks for quite some time now…

That was when she decided to simply take the entire chest with her.

* * *

When they had first met, she had wondered why Viktor had spent so much time by the lake. Hermione did because it was a good place to read, and unlike the library nobody thought to come looking for her out here. But Viktor seemed to be mostly focused on doing laps, and he went around the lake again and again and again.

"Why here?" Hermione had asked him one day, when he'd stopped and stretched to cool off near here.

Viktor had smiled to her with such incredible sadness. "This is the closest thing I can find to the sea, here. And this is the closest I can get."

And so the lake had become their de facto meeting spot, and it was their meeting spot now. He was already waiting there when Hermione emerged from the castle with the chest floating behind her.

"Did you get in trouble?" she asked.

"That is not what I am worried about," Viktor said. "And you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Hermione nodded. She set the chest down between the two of them, on the rocky pebbles leading down to the lake.

Viktor sighed in content. Eyes closed, his fingers reached out and touched the chest.

"Even just, having it close… I feel better," he said. "More healthy. More strong. I cannot wait to wear it again."

"We just have to get this chest open," Hermione said. She crouched to look at it again, illuminating the bronze and oak with the tip of her wand. "I worry about any curses he may have put on it, to hex us if we try to open it the wrong way…"

"If he did, I would rather burn the whole thing than let him have it again," Viktor said, a shadow passing over his face. "I am done being controlled and forced to hide by him. He had held my life in his hands since he came to see that I could be of use to him, and I am finished."

Hermione's heart froze in her chest. Her stomach twisted.

"We'll find a solution that doesn't hurt you," Hermione said. "Really, we will. You _need _that cloak."

Viktor sat on the ground and ran his hand over the chest. "The cloak, it… it makes me free. It makes me, me. That is what I need it for. That is what Karkaroff took from me when he stole it. That is what I need back."

"Okay," Hermione said. "Okay, let's think this one through…"

They did. The chest gave them no hints in the slightest of what kind of magic it was imbued with. After hours, nor she nor Viktor—even if the Dark Arts were taught at Durmstrang—had any solutions.

"We just need to try something," Viktor finally said. "I do not think we will think of something or even know that we are on the right track just like that."

"Okay," Hermione said, getting up from her spot in the rocks. She drew her wand. "I'll do it."

"No!" Viktor said. "No, it may hurt you…"

"And it may be cursed so that you can't open it, just like Karkaroff's chambers have wards against you," Hermione said. "I said I was helping you, Viktor. I am. I will from start to finish."

It took Hermione some time to unpack the look in Viktor's eyes and give it a name, but then she realized that it was fondness.

She squeezed his hand.

"Step back," she said. She pointed her wand. "_Alohomora." _

It was that easy. That easy. For a moment, Hermione felt silly for all the fretting they'd done. She realized just how firmly Viktor had meant it, when he'd told her that Karkaroff had such control over him that he wouldn't even be able to imagine a world where Viktor acted against him.

The second that the locks on the chest clicked, Viktor fell to his knees next to it and threw the lid back. With both hands, he reached into the chest. He scrambled back to his feet to unfurl the luxurious cloak inside to its full length. The sealskin cloak was a mild but firm grey, like a stormy night, flecked with black and white in a pattern so unique, it made Hermione think of how humans had unique fingerprints too. She realized just how easy it would be to blend into the sea's darkness with a skin like that, then realized that that must be exactly the point.

Viktor hugged the cloak to his chest and buried his face in it, taking in its texture, its softness, its smell… She couldn't help but feel as if this was a homecoming, of sorts.

"It is perfect," Viktor said. "It is… I was so afraid that he had done something to it."

"He wouldn't have," Hermione said. Not because Karkaroff wouldn't dare desecrate something so beautiful and so important, but because he couldn't have controlled Viktor if he hadn't been holding the cloak hostage.

He looked at the cloak a moment longer, disbelieving. He looked up at Hermione again.

"Put it on," Hermione said. "Put it on and leave—get as far away from here, from Karkaroff, from the tournament as you can."

"I do not want to leave," Viktor said. "I like it here. I like… I like you."

Hermione felt herself blushing but hoped he wouldn't notice, in the night.

"I like living in this world," Viktor said. "And I can live in this world. I used to live in it openly. My secret does not have to be as such. I just do not like to be controlled. It is normal, for those like me. The sea does not like to be restrained and neither do its people. But you, Hermione…"

He said her name so carefully, still after all these weeks of practise, and it made her smile.

"You have given that back to me," he said. "I can live again."

She kept smiling. And she couldn't stop herself from thinking—even if it may be dangerous and even if this tournament was an all-around bad idea… well, she was happy he would be staying.

"Well then you should put it on so that you can change your shape again," Hermione said. "I know it's been a long time. Too long for a Selkie, probably."

At that Viktor smiled, and nodded. He turned to look towards the lake and took a running start towards it. When he was just about to jump into the water, he swung the cloak over his shoulders. It clung to his frame and sunk into his skin for just a moment before Viktor as she had always known him disappeared, and a sleek seal dove into the Black Lake's waters.

Viktor disappeared under the surface and he only reappeared a few meters farther, surfacing for air and leaving a playful, carefree splash in his wake.

* * *

Hermione fell asleep at their spot, waiting for Viktor to emerge. That had been incredibly stupid—she knew firsthand what exactly lived in the Forbidden Forest and may wander out at any given time, but she couldn't help it. The sound of the waves were soothing and the stress of the day was getting to her.

When she woke up it was because a still-wet hand closed over hers. She opened her eyes and looked at Viktor sleepily. His sealskin cloak still hung around his shoulders openly—Hermione hoped he'd continue wearing it like that, now that it was back in his hands. He knelt in front of Hermione and offered her a smile.

"You took the time you needed?" she asked sleepily.

"I wanted to check on you," Viktor said.

"That's sweet," she said. "But you didn't have to…"

And then to her complete shock he leaned in and kissed her—a soft kiss that seemed way too quick for what it was and how it made her feel…

As soon as he'd pulled away, she blushed more.

"You didn't have to do that either," she said.

"No I did not, but I wanted to," Viktor smiled. He shrugged his shoulders so that his cloak, his second skin, settled over his shoulders more. "No more restraints."

* * *

**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Winter Bingo; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Hola, Bonjour, Jambo; Gryffindor MC; Durmstrang MC; Creature People; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Trope it Up C (Language Barriers); Themes & Things A (Truth); Themes & Things B (Escape); Themes & Things C (Cage); Ethnic & Present; True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Word Count: **2171

* * *

_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Hermione Granger/Viktor Krum (Viktory)

**List (Prompt): **Spring Medium 2 (Creature AU)

* * *

_**Winter Bingo**_

**Space (prompt): **2C (Darkness)


End file.
